A routine stop back in August led to a three-month investigation, New Hampshire Fish and Game officials said. When officials boarded a part-time commercial lobsterman’s vessel, they immediately noticed something wasn’t right, Fish and Game Lt. Michael Eastman said.

“Contacts with this individual that led us to the understanding that things weren’t the way they were supposed to be,” Eastman said. “He did not have some required gear or attachments to his gear such as trap tags. (There were) trap tag violations, name tag violations.”

Investigators obtained a search warrant, which helped lead them to a stolen car, officials said. In all, conservation officers seized 81 lobster traps taken from an area stretching from Odiorne State Park to south of Rye Harbor.

Officials determined that 49 of the traps were stolen.

“Some of them belonged to a deceased fisherman, who died back in July,” Eastman said.

Investigators said the traps belonged to Tony Rahn, a well-known school teacher and sportsman who died in the Piscataqua River while he was checking on a lobster line and never came back up.

Rahn wasn’t the only theft victim, officials said.

“Some were from other fishermen that were actively fishing and had reported that they had lost gear throughout the summer,” Eastman said.